The Kyiv Independent has highlighted five translated Ukrainian books slated for publication in late 2026 and early 2027, marking an important period for Ukrainian literature in English translation. Notably, Yuri Andrukhovych’s novel “Radio Night” will be the first contemporary Ukrainian novel published by New York Review Books.
The five recommended books are:
1. “Radio Night” by Yuri Andrukhovych, translated by Mark Andryczyk. The novel follows an exiled musician who accidentally kills his country’s dictator with an egg after spotting him in the crowd at a performance. Pursued by security services alongside his lover and a raven, the musician eventually reaches a desolate prison island where he broadcasts an underground radio show to anyone listening.
2. “The World is Not Made” by Myroslav Laiuk, translated by Ali Kinsella. Spanning two centuries, this multi-perspective novel begins with a young woman named Inna returning home for her mother’s funeral in the present day. It also follows Oleksii, a revolutionary with Nestor Makhno’s anarchists, and Lesio, a Carpathian peasant sensing doom in Austro-Hungarian times, as all three explore themes of identity and belonging.
3. “Vortex: Selected Poems” by Vasyl Stus, translated by Bohdan Tokarskyi and Nina Murray. This collection marks the first book of Stus’ work to be published in English. Stus was a prominent 20th-century poet persecuted by Soviet authorities for defending Ukrainian culture and human rights, ultimately dying in a Russian penal colony in 1985. The selection highlights his moral clarity and the endurance of Ukrainian culture against erasure efforts.
4. “Felix Austria” by Sofia Andrukhovych, translated by Vitaly Chernetsky. Set in late 19th- and early 20th-century Ivano-Frankivsk (then Stanyslaviv within the Habsburg Empire), the story explores the complex psychological and social relationship between Adela and Stefania, two girls raised as sisters after a house fire killed their mothers.
5. “The Shipwright” by Yurii Yanovskyi, translated by Ian Ross Singleton. Originally published in 1928, this novel focuses on an aging filmmaker in Odesa during the Soviet era. It provides a distinct Ukrainian perspective on a historical period dominated by Russian narratives, illustrating the struggles of artists under a system that sought to marginalize and penalize expressions of Ukrainian identity and nationhood.
